Featuring Exhibits That Tell Stories That Stretch Back All The Way To The Formation Of The Earth And Forward Into The Future
For an unassuming building in the southwestern town of Mesa, the Arizona Museum of Natural History (AzMNH) packs a lot of punch. Inside, exhibits tell stories that stretch back all the way to the formation of the earth and forward into the future, with stops along the way for dinosaurs, giant Ice Age mammals and a unique and successful prehistoric Native American civilization.
“People are always surprised by how big the museum is when they come through the door,” Kathy Eastman, curator of education for AzMNH, tells The Buzz. “We’re sort of dull on the outside. The older one-story section is the old city hall built by the CCC back in the 1930s. Like so many projects, they ran out of money before they finished.”
In the museum’s lobby, visitors are greeted by the skeletal remains of Ice Age mammals, including American lions, camels and one-toed horses, a Columbian mammoth and the largest mastodon skeleton on display in the world. “These are all mammals that roamed around the Phoenix basin during the Pleistocene [1 million to 10,000 years ago],” Paleontology Collections Manager Gavin McCullough explains. “The sediments around here are relatively young. To find dinosaurs, you have to go other parts of the state.”
Gavin is among the paleontologists excavating sites in Arizona, New Mexico and elsewhere on expeditions sponsored by the museum. “We have active digs at sites that date from 20 million years ago to 100 million,” he says. “We’ve even found some fossil holotypes - that’s the first example ever found of a particular species.” Some of the “jewels” in the AzMNH crown include the Zuniceratops from 90 million years ago, the five-horned Pentaceratops, the Zuni Coelurosaur meat-eating raptor, and the very early Arizonasaurus, dated to the Triassic, some 230 million years ago.
“The Arizonasaurus isn’t actually a dinosaur,” Gavin explains. “He was a weird looking lizard-type with spines on his back, that lived before the great supercontinent broke up. We found him at a dig in the Petrified Forest National Park. Back then Arizona was a huge sea of sand.”
Visitors to the museum get a memorable overview of Arizona’s natural history at Dinosaur Mountain which dominates the three-story wing of the building. “It represents a sequence of time, with the youngest animals at the top and the oldest at the bottom,” McCullough says. “We’ve tried to make the dinosaurs and other models look like the local animals, and some are robotic. When you stand at the bottom you are looking up through time.” Triassic creatures occupy the base of the mountain, while a modern bighorn sheep and black bear stand at the top.
“There’s a definite wow factor,” Kathy Eastman says. “The mountain is three stories tall and every 23 minutes a flash flood cascades down the face. It gives us an opportunity to talk about science and change through time.”
While the Arizona Museum of Natural History is the official repository of fossil finds from all over the state, its collections also have a human side. The Salt River Basin, where Phoenix, Scottsdale and Mesa are located, was the heart of the Hohokam civilization which flourished from about 800 to 1400 A.D. This Native American people built a sophisticated irrigation system which supported the largest population in the prehistoric Southwest.
“They were amazing farmers,” says Kathy Neenan, an archeologist at AzMNH. “Their irrigation system was incomparable, supporting 100,000 acres of farmland that kept this large population alive in the desert. Some of the canals are so big that you could drive a semi truck through them. And they did it by hand, with sticks. Some of the canals dug by the Hohokam are still in use today, taken over by modern farmers.”
The organization that became the Arizona Museum of Natural History was originally established 40 years ago to oversee the ruins of a large Hohokam pueblo, Mesa Grande, located about a mile from the current museum. Today, Mesa Grande has its own Cultural Center and interpretive trails. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, who believe they are descendants of the Hohokam, have helped preserve the site.
“Mesa Grande has been an active archeological site since 1865,” Neenan says. “Recent excavations have discovered walls and living areas. A replica of the ceremonial ball court has been rebuilt on one corner of the site.”
Among the artifacts the Hohokam left behind are examples of pottery, which are often dug up intact. “Their ceramic technology was remarkable,” Neenan explains. “They mixed silt and sand, put it in a hole and fired it, and came up with a pot that resists wear and tear for 1,000 years. Nothing compares to the quality they could produce. We’ve tried to recreate it, but can’t.”
Archeology is still an active pursuit in Mesa today, as urban development unearths numerous early habitation sites that must be excavated before building can proceed. The museum’s SWAT (Southwest Archeology Team) group, made up of volunteers, remains on call.
AzMNH has many other attractions, with several appealing to children, including free “gold” panning and a “fossil dig” in the courtyard, along with a replica copper mine. “We’ve also got an old territorial jail,” Kathy Eastman says. “It was moved here when the CCC ran out of money and served as the city jail for years, probably in use 100 years total. It’s got a lot of aroma to prove it.”
“We’re a full service natural history museum,” Gavin McCullough says. “We have both archeology and paleontology exhibits, and display mostly local finds. Arizona has seen so much change over time. Sometimes this was beachfront property. We have four different kinds of desert in Arizona. About 20 million years ago we had really violent volcanic eruptions that formed the Superstition Mountains. You can see it all in the rocks, see how it affected the history of the people who lived here. That’s the story we’re telling… besides it’s sort of cool to imagine a mammoth walking through downtown Phoenix.”
Renee Wright
A graduate of Franconia College in Social Psychology, Renee has worked as Travel Editor for Charlotte Magazine and has written three travel guidebooks for Countryman Press among other writing assignments. She enjoys food and camping.
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